Domestic violence is not only a personal tragedy; it is also an epidemic in America, as well as a serious crime. In the United States, domestic violence is the most frequent cause of serious injury to women, more than car accidents, muggings, and stranger rapes combined (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence).

According to the Centers for Disease Control, domestic violence is a “serious, preventable public health problem affecting more than 32 million Americans, or more than 10% of the U.S. population.” These intimate partner victimizations inflict 2 million injuries resulting in 1,800 deaths annually. Every day, three women die at the hands of someone who supposedly loves them.

Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of abusive or coercive behavior that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Other terms for domestic violence include wife- or husband-beating, battering, relation violence, spousal abuse, and intimate partner violence (IPV). Intimate partner violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, or economic.

**PHYSICAL ABUSE: The intentional use of physical force with the potential for causing injury, harm, disability, or death. This includes scratching, pushing, shoving, throwing, grabbing, pinching, biting, hair-pulling, shaking, slapping, punching, kicking, burning, use of a weapon, and use of restraints or one’s body, size, or strength against another person.• Physical abuse also includes denying a partner medical care or forcing alcohol and/or drug use.

**SEXUAL ABUSE: Coercing or attempting to coerce any sexual contact or behavior without consent. Sexual abuse includes, but is not limited to, marital rape, attacks on sexual parts of the body, forcing sex after physical violence has occurred or treating someone in a sexually demeaning manner.

**PSYCHOLOGICAL/EMOTIONAL ABUSE: Undermining an individual’s sense of self-worth and/or self-esteem. This may include, but is not limited to, constant criticism, humiliating the victim; causing fear by intimidation; threatening physical harm to self, partner, children, or partner’s family or friends; the destruction of pets and property and/or forcing isolation from family, friends, school and/or work.

**ECONOMIC ABUSE: Making or attempting to make an individual financially dependent by maintaining total control over financial resources, withholding one’s access to money, or forbidding one’s attendance at school or employment.

• Over a half-million women are stalked by an intimate partner annually (BJS)

• 30-45 percent of all woman who are battered are battered during pregnancy, with battering increasing significantly in the last trimester (CDC)

• 324,000 pregnant woman were battered in 2010; they are 60 percent more likely to be battered than woman who are not pregnant (CDC)

• 555,000 women require medical attention each year (30-40 percent of women’s emergency room visits are for injuries due to domestic violence--CDC)

• 145,000 women need immediate hospitalization (CDC)

• 65 percent of men who assaulted their female partners will also assault their children

• 15.5 million children a year are affected by domestic violence (FBI)

• 8 million paid workdays are lost each year due to violence; that is the equivalent of 32,114 full-time jobs (NCADV)

• The costs of Intimate Partner Violence exceeds $8.3 billion, (which includes $6.2 billion for physical assault, $461 million for stalking, $460 million for rape, and $1.2 billion in the value of lost lives)(NCADV)